"His Name is Idiot"

The independence party, which doesn't take a stance on social issues, had to find a complicated reason for booting Lenora Fulani off of their executive committee this past Sunday. We and the rest of New York thought her repeated refusals to denounce the anti-Semitic remarks she made years ago and her cult-like obsession with the teachings of crazed social therapist Fred Newman were reason enough for her to be political persona non grata.

Independence Party State Chairman Frank MacKay, whose mullet could get him recalled back to the 1980s, had a different reason: Fulani got too much ink calling herself the leader of the Independence Party. And that is MacKay's claim to fame, for what it's been worth. So, for not identifying herself as a rank and file member, she and five of her closest friends were kicked off the party's executive committee following a marathon five hour meeting of the state committee in Albany.

MacKay and longtime IP executive member Rafael Colon-who asked for the recall months ago-said they only understood the full weight of Fulani's comments ("the stormtroopers of decadent capitalism," "mass murderers of people of color" and so on) after her NY1 interview with Dominic Carter a few months ago.

Sitting directly opposite Fulani, I could see her nod her head and hear her say, "go on" and "teach" when her supporters spoke. Sitting next to me was an older Irish woman who'd voted for president before Fulani's first run in 1988.

When one of Fulani's supporters forgot the name of the NY1 anchor who questioned Fulani, she quietly said, "His name is idiot." In defense of her beliefs, she pointed out that "Michael Bloomberg, the mayor of New York City, whose campaign I am vigorously supporting, is a Jew." But not, we assume, a stormtrooper.

What gets us though, is how Mayor Mike is again running on her line, yet when asked to comment on the proceeding replied that "I'm not a member. I don't think I should be commenting on somebody else's party." Which is a funny response from their mayoral candidate. He did say that he was "happy to have their endorsement, and I think a lot of the things they stand for I stand for as well." We'd love to know what those are, and how they inspired him to give a quarter of a million dollars to the state party and another fifty thousand to a group closely associated with Fulani in the past four years.

To be fair, Bloomberg has as much in common with her party as he does with the Republicans.

Afterwards, Fulani let loose a huge smile and made a big fat zero with her fingers when asked how this affected her control of the New York City chapter of the Independence Party. Note to editors: Keep calling her the party's leader.

HEALING LAME DUCKS?

The lame duck session of the City Council is that sleepy three months when all sorts of surprises find their way onto the political agenda, right under the dull gaze of an electorate worn out from the political blitzkrieg of the primaries.

The first surprise is the change in term limits from two consecutive terms to three or four. Voters twice went to the polls and approved of term limits as they are. But what does the public know? Who among us had forgotten the Ruben Studdard-Clay Aiken travesty?

Looking to sneak through the term limits change is Manhattan Councilmanic Gale Brewer, who also has looked to lower the voting age from 18 to 16. Aiken for Council President, baby.

The man who could fast track both bills is term-limited City Council Speaker Gifford Miller, whom we suspect of harboring bitter feelings for the public after his fourth-place finish in the Democratic Primary. What better way to stick it to the ungrateful folks of Gotham than to extend the reign of current Council members?

One constituency that cares profoundly about the 38 Council members due to be ousted in 2009 are their own staffers, a number of whom are expected to run for their boss's vacated seats. At least 15 current members of the City Council were aides or chiefs of staff to other elected officials before winning their own seats.

But as one Council source with a keen political eye and something of a conscience admitted, "There's something not very ethical about running for office when you're boss is still in that office and you're working for him." If term limits remain as is, expect a mass exodus of experienced staffers.

If term limits are tweaked, expect these impatient staffers to announce their candidacies as part of a reform movement. And what could be more of a reform movement than staffers hungry for more power?

However this goes, don't forget to email me those pink slips doubling as campaign kick-offs.

WINNING STRATEGY, AISLE 3

While no one thinks much of his chances, Ferrer isn't out of the mayoral race yet. His best shot at defeating Bloomberg may lie in the aisles of Wal-Mart. Well, just outside their aisles, actually. Team Ferrer can wade into the debate on whether the world's largest retailer, known for busting unions and causing black hole-like effects on the economy, should open its first stores here.

Progressive voters are mad at Wal-Mart for locking porters in stores overnight, paying low wages and worse. For many, the store is emblematic of why we live in New York, not in America.

Also looking to stop Wal-Mart are conservative voters, many of them from the isolated planet of Staten Island, where the company is eyeing two locations. The traffic might tamper with the borough's booming property values, and would no doubt affect the bucolic way of life (outside the Shaolin projects, at least).

Bloomberg has already said he won't block Wal-Mart from going Gotham. Team Ferrer can pick up progressives and conservatives in one fell swoop-and he doesn't even have to spend money, just announce his opposition.

One Brooklyn-based organization with the teenie bopper-approved name "Wal-Mart, No way" is already airing a television ad on NY1. Ferrer's not going to outflank Bloomberg's right, so why not get on board with NYC's mighty Banana crowd?

WORKING IT

After years of holding Gotham's donkeys by their tails in the hopes of pulling the party back to the left, the seven-year-old Working Families Party is deciding whether to tighten its grip or let go and save themselves.

This year, the WFP joined the more than two and a half million registered Democrats who didn't bother to support a candidate. Now that Fernando Ferrer has eked out the Democratic nomination, the WFP is faced with a choice they haven't had to make in some time: the gravy train or the little engine that could. That is, the party must choose whether to endorse Ferrer, a likely loser whose politics they share, or stay neutral, which would amount to supporting the likely winner, billionaire Republican Mayor Michael Bloomberg, with whom the progressive and union-based WFP has little in common.

But the WFP has gone off the gravy train tracks before, in 2001, when they supported Democratic mayoral candidate Mark Green, the odds-on-favorite to win who was upset by Bloomberg, and in 2002, when they backed gubernatorial candidate H. Carl McCall, an African-American then serving as the state comptroller.

There's a multi-billion-dollar budget shortfall serendipitously set to erupt a year after the mayoral election is decided. Bloomberg is demanding municipal employees to work longer hours to get the pay increases they're demanding. Taxpayers, especially those in the private sector, like the idea.

The little engine that probably can't is being driven by Ferrer, a twice-failed mayoral candidate who needed a Sept. 11 appearance alongside Rev. Al to escape a run-off by a margin of barely 200 votes. Ferrer has called for higher taxes, more pay for civil servants and wresting billions in education money from tightfisted lawmakers in Albany.

This should be a no-brainer for the WFP.

And the nomination goes to? no one yet.

"Ferrer came close," said a WFP source after the party discussed it for an hour this Saturday. They'll meet on September 27 to vote again.

For the record, the WFP mayoral candidate is Kevin Finnegan, an acknowledged placeholder for a choice to be named later.

The WFP is going to decide which train to board, and whether to pack any of their principles for the trip.

All aboard.